Orange sees strong growth in premium TV services

France Télécom recorded a 53% increase in its TV customer base last year, taking its international total to 3.2 million IPTV and satellite TV subscribers, with particularly strong growth in its premium pay-TV services.

In France, the number of TV customers grew by 45% year-on-year to 2.761 million. The figure at the end of September was 2.547 million. Premium Orange sport and Orange cinema series subscribers numbered 663,000 at year-end, up from 130,000 a year earlier. Video-on-demand purchases increased by 67% over the course of the year. The company said that the ratio of commercial expenses and content purchases to EBITDA was 14.7%, up only 0.2 points, with the increased content costs for the premium TV services offset to a large extent by the decline in commercial expenses linked to the overall business slowdown.

France Télécom had 13.5 million ADSL subscribers, up 4.1%, of which 8.8 million were Livebox subscribers, up 12%.

France Télécom as a whole turned in consolidated revenues of €46.9bn over the year, down 1.8% on a comparable basis. EBITDA was 16.3bn, down 0.5%.